Obama: N.Y. Times' Iran report 'not true'

10/22/12 9:56 PM EDT

At tonight's foreign policy debate, President Barack Obama reiterated his administration's denial of a recent New York Times report about forthcoming talks between the United States and Iran over that country's nuclear program.

"Well, first of all those are reports in the newspaper. They are not true," the president said. "But our goal is to get Iran to recognize it needs to give up its nuclear program and abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place. Because they have the opportunity to reenter the community of nations, and we would welcome that."

Both the Obama administration and the Iranian government denied that they have agreed to talks, which the Times first reported on over the weekend.

Times executive editor Jill Abramson stood by the paper's reporting today, telling the Times public editor the story was “solid and true," and that the White House was “hair-splitting” when it denied that there was an agreement.

UPDATE (9:54 p.m.): David Leonhardt, Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, tweets: "To repeat: we stand by our Iran story."